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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 141 (2014) 546 – 550

WCLTA 2013

Reflections On The Implications Of Globalization Of Education For

Research Supervision
Rashida Qureshi*
Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology (SZABIST), Islamabad Campus, Pakistan,

Abstract

In Pakistan the educational landscape is not homogeneous. There are enormous differences in skills, knowledge, and practices of
the graduating students from different school systems. These differences tend to promote sub-cultures among students when they
come to the institutions of higher learning. Initiation of these students into the ‘mono’ culture of the global community of
researchers is an uphill task to be carried out by graduate research supervisors. The heartaches and rewards of this journey may
simulate the experiences of a sojourner in foreign lands. In this reflection paper the perspectives of both supervisees (through
interviews) and supervisors (through informal collegial discussion, personal experiences and observations) are taken for
understanding the issues that facilitate and/ or hinder the initiation process. The findings imply the use of acculturation theories
for understanding students’ experiences rather than conventional learning theories.

© 2014
© 2014 The
Published by Published
Authors. Elsevier Ltd. This is an
by Elsevier open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
Ltd.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of WCLTA 2013.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of WCLTA 2013.
Keywords: Research supervision, Academic culture, Pakistan, student experiences, acculturation theories;

1. Introduction

Similar to other developed and developing countries, Pakistan is also experiencing globalization of higher
education which has increased diversity among students in the institutions of higher learning. For the developed
nations the source of diversity (mostly) is cultural and external; students arrive from different countries and come
into contact with each other and with the culture of the host societies. A fairly large body of research literature on
these experiences of international students is available [1, 2, 3, and 4]. In the institutions of higher learning in
Pakistan, a reasonably large number of international students is enrolled; however, in this reflection paper, I intend

* Corresponding author: Rashida Qureshi, Tel.: (051) 4863363-65

E-mail address: dr.rashida@szabist-isb.edu.pk

1877-0428 © 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of WCLTA 2013.
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.05.095
 Rashida Qureshi / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 141 (2014) 546 – 550 547

to problematize the issues of national students where the source of diversity is ‘cultural’ but not external; students
come from ‘local’ academic cultures and are initiated into a community of practice that is shaped by ‘global’
academic culture. Therefore, their experiences of acculturation, assimilation, integration or segregation may resonate
with those of international students.

2. Theoretical stance

My observations and experiences suggest that combination of the local and global academic cultures brings out
dimensions of cultural differences that may not be readily visible and yet have profound impact on the relationship
between a supervisor and supervisee. My thesis is that in a developing country like Pakistan educational landscape is
not homogeneous. There are different school systems like public, private and faith-based with enormous differences
in skills, knowledge, and practices of the graduating students. These differences tend to promote sub-cultures among
students at the institutions of higher learning. Initiation of these students into the ‘mono’ culture of a global
community of researchers is an uphill task to be carried out by research supervisors. The experiences of this journey,
the heartaches and rewards may simulate the experiences of a sojourner in foreign lands. Therefore, the application
of acculturative stressors like; “language barriers, educational difficulties, loneliness, discrimination, and practical
problems associated with changing environments” [5], to the experiences of these students may open new areas of
understanding how students’ adjustment to new life on campus, be at home or abroad, may be facilitated more
effectively

3. The study context and methodology

The paper focuses on the experiences of supervisees and supervisors in the institutions of higher learning in
Pakistan. These experiences provide a backdrop against which the issues facilitating and/ or hindering the initiation
process of supervisees are understood. The perspectives of both sides, supervisees and supervisors, are taken into
account and data are collected through interviews for the former and personal experiences, observations and
informal collegial discussions for the latter. The data was collected from students and supervisors who belonged to
different institutions of higher learning in Pakistan. The sampling was purposive. Since I teach and supervise
research at under graduate and graduate levels, I used convenience sampling technique for choosing my own
students and colleagues [6]. Further, using the snowballing technique, I could also reach out to other students and
supervisors (ibid). The students included are both traditional (young, full time students with no family or work
responsibilities) and non-traditional (mature, returning to school after a break, mostly part timers with family and
work responsibilities). In total 30 students and 20 supervisors took part in this study and a whole range of academic
experiences was explored. However, due to space limitation, only one dimension of the experiences i.e., language
barriers, is presented here.†

4. Results and findings

At the institutions of higher learning in Pakistan English is the medium of instruction but for a large number of
students English is more like a foreign language. Majority of the students reported that the experience of campus life
was like entering into a different world; “we feel as if we were in a foreign country, the environment, the language,
everything is different, and we do not even speak our own language.” For that reason the very first cultural shock for
many of them manifested into ‘language anxiety’ [7] which increased their educational difficulties [8&9] because
the academic discourse requires reasonably sound knowledge of reading, writing and speaking of English. The
following comments of students are reflective of their difficulties. (a) Class presentations are difficult not because I
do not know the subject it is the speaking in English that keeps me back. (b) I wish we were taught in Urdu like at
school, I was not such a poor performer there. (c) “Sometimes I have to read and re-read the same material over

†
The material presented in this paper is part of a larger research which is a work in progress .
548 Rashida Qureshi / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 141 (2014) 546 – 550

and over in order to understand what the main idea of the author is, it takes up so much of my time.”

Data revealed tensions between ‘old’ and ‘new’ ways of learning and strategies as some of the students
commented; “nothing seems familiar, and classroom practices are different too, there [in schools] we were taught
what is what. Now our teachers and supervisors expect that we will learn independently. Here [university] they
guide us but do not ‘teach’ us.” The students’ reference to expectations brings to notice the differences in the values
and assumptions of the academic cultures of their present and previous institutions. The supervisors also
corroborated by agreeing in majority to the mismatch between students’ background and the higher learning
institutions’ expectations. One of them stated, “Most of our schools still have teacher-centred classrooms and our
students are used to instructor led, lecture-based traditional kind of teaching whereas at universities the classroom
practices are different.” Other supervisors cited the use of presentations, projects and other assignments for learning
and assessment practices which were different than the typical summative paper-pencil examinations at the end of
term in majority of the schools in Pakistan. They pointed out that the assessment practices at universities required of
students to grasp and apply their learning and not just rote memorize and regurgitate facts and figures like they did
in their school years.
Another difference identified by the majority of supervisors was; “most of the students we teach or supervise have
either no or very limited prior experience of producing or consuming academic research, but in a university culture
they have to use and produce academic researches. In order to do this they need fairly good reading, writing and
comprehension skills and students struggle with all.” They acknowledged that; “research culture in Pakistan though
not very strong even at the universities is much better than schools where these students come from. They are
shocked as they realize the difference in their ‘local’ [at their schools] and our ‘global’ [at the universities] research
culture.”

In addition data revealed an associated issue; not only students were reading and writing in a foreign language but
the practical examples of research they were given during teaching and learning especially during research
methodology courses were also (mostly) from the West and thus were part of the ‘other’ culture. Supervisors while
lamenting the lack or inaccessibility of local relevant research studies were aware of the difficult situation this puts
students in; “students become more frustrated as they struggle not only to master a different language but also make
sense of academic concepts through the western cultural norms.” While supervisors were concerned students blamed
their “research training in foreign lands” as the main cause for not being ‘sympathetic’ towards them; “majority of
our supervisors are part of the western academic culture, they could be ‘outsiders’ as they represent their (western)
culture and speak their language.” Supervisors on the same note felt uncomfortable as “this distance between us and
our supervisees creates invisible ‘intercultural’ communication barriers which have the potential of creating friction
if not avoided carefully. ”However, the implications of such relationship were not lost on the supervisors; it meant
being forced into the role of a councillor and therapist as handholding and spoon feeding appeared on top of the list
of support services expected by their supervisees.

Data revealed three sub-themes with reference to the learning of research language including, a) through research
methodology courses, b) through general and discipline specific courses, and c) through research projects, theses
and dissertations. Nonetheless, most of the discussion revolved around the learning of research through research
methodology courses which were difficult as a student put it; “I think it is misleading to call research ‘a subject’, it
is like a tossed salad, with chunks of statistical concepts, slices of SPSS, portions from my major discipline with
research design as a dressing; on top of it, every bit counts and every piece matters.” Another added, “I have no
interest in it [research] and may be that is why my performance in research courses also remains low.” These
comments are very similar to those made by Edwards & Thatcher [10] and Benson & Blackman [11]. Still another
student remarked; “learning of research was like learning a new language, some of the terms are so difficult even to
pronounce.” Further reflection of the same is found in one of the comments made by couple of students;
“understanding research is different, it is not like English… took us long to understand that qualitative research does
not refer to the ‘quality’ as one would think of in ordinary English language.” Very few students admitted having
learnt research methodology through general or discipline specific courses. Majority stressed that hands-on
experience of doing a research project or thesis or dissertation, though difficult and frustrating, had actually
contributed significantly to their real understanding of research as a discipline. At the same time quite a large
number of students admitted getting by through copy/paste and other unethical practices.
 Rashida Qureshi / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 141 (2014) 546 – 550 549

Data also revealed reasons for students’ reluctance towards investing in learning research; Supervisors explained;
“The irony is that in our schools research is not considered, in our work places (other than academia), research is not
encouraged but here [at the university] students have to do research for getting their degree. So they look for
shortcuts.” A large majority of the non-traditional students did not want to “devote too much time to learning
something that is not going to be part of our careers; we only need it for attaining a degree.” Similar observations
have been reported by Vazir & Qureshi [12].

5. Implications of the findings

Research studies on acculturation recognize language as one of the major acculturative stressors [5]. School systems
in Pakistan vary in terms of the medium of instruction and students with schooling experiences of public, private
and faith based schools display huge disparities as far as the functional knowledge of English is concerned because
for the largest sections of public and faith based schools national language (Urdu) or regional languages and not
English are used as mediums of instruction [13]. For higher education, English is the medium of instruction and the
programs of study at these institutions, irrespective of academic discipline, require fairly solid knowledge of
reading, writing and speaking of English. In such situations learning and understanding research language becomes
an additional burden for students most of whom display a ‘resigned’ attitude like ‘no escape’ so ‘get it done’
anyway. Consequently, their interest and performance in research courses (usually) remains low.

At the same time, the implicit academic expectations are that research supervision at the undergraduate level should,
at least, enable students to; a) produce argumentative essays, b) critically analyze a research paper, and c) write a
position paper. At the graduate levels the expectations go up to writing research papers, proposals and
theses/dissertations. These expectations combined with the kind of academic milieu referred to earlier puts
additional pressure on research supervisors as their responsibilities become many-fold. For instance, most of them
especially at the undergraduate level are forced into teaching ‘individualized’ course in research methodology to one
student at a time where his/her research topic is taken through the usual research cycle. Supervision becomes more
like ‘interrupted lecture series’ as interaction with supervisees takes the forms of short sessions of (mostly)
monologues on various aspects of research. Depending on the number of supervisees each semester the above
practice means teaching extra research courses in addition to the semester’s usual teaching load (not to mention
research and service related activities.

Another responsibility that falls on the shoulders of supervisors is assisting students in locating literature and
gathering information with all its subjectivities and contextually/ culturally relevant details to meet the rigorous
academic standards of international research community. As one of the language related issues students have id their
deficient ability to read and write academic English, they expect their supervisors to actually ‘tell’ them how to
frame their chosen topic. Similar expectations have also been reported by Wang & Li [14 & 15]. Implications for
supervisors are that handholding, not scaffolding is in demand especially during the writing stage when students
struggle the most. Their supervisors also struggle but at a different level; they want their students to experience deep
learning whereas students would rather ‘be done’ with the surface learning. Supervisors encourage students to
thoroughly scan and scrutinize the relevant literature in order to be able to read between the lines and produce a
critical writing piece. Students, on the other hand, make do by skimming the material without properly examining it
and thus missing important points and coming up with superficial descriptive pieces of writing. Although students
coming from English medium schools system are apparently better in expressing themselves in English, verbally
and in writing, even they usually produce pieces of writings which are like ‘senator’s speech’; strong on language,
weak on content.

6. Conclusions and recommendations

Graduate research supervisors in institutions of higher learning in Pakistan are faced with many challenges. With
somewhat weak research culture in the country students may not feel acquiring knowledge about research or doing
research is really important for their academic progress in future. Given the academic background of students in
institutions of higher learning, it may be important to review and adapt our academic programs and pedagogical
practices to the contextual needs of our students.
550 Rashida Qureshi / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 141 (2014) 546 – 550

While many institutions of higher learning in Pakistan include academic programs and courses for teaching
academic writing in English but none exists where bi-lingual teaching of research and research jargons is made
available. Providing structured (and supervised) opportunities to students for discussing concepts related to research
discipline in their native language would make a huge difference to their understanding and subsequent
consumption.

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